Gun victim, 7 faces months of treatment
THE boy of seven shot on his doorstep in a suspected gangland feud faces months in hospital, police say.
Christian Hickey has lifechanging injuries after being blasted in the thigh but has been well enough to be interviewed by officers.
Experts will today examine a bullet removed from his leg. His mum Jayne, 29, was shot twice.
Officers say a “wall of silence” is hindering their probe after two men targeted the pair in Eccles, Gtr Manchester, on Monday.
The attack has been linked to the murder of gangland “Mr Big” Paul Massey, 55, in Salford, in July.
The boy’s father, Christian, got seven years for manslaughter for his part in a fatal stabbing in 2002.
Police said: “We cannot allow more children to get caught in this violent feud.”
SAVE the Children nurse Pauline Cafferkey is fighting for life in hospital after her condition worsened.
The Scottish aid worker, who first picked up the disease on a mercy mission last year, was flown in the early hours of Friday to be treated by specialists in London.
Medics said last night she is now “critically ill”.
And disease expert Dr Ben Neuman warned: “We don’t really know what Ebola looks like the second time around, or after a big relapse like this.
“Right now, she’s had this virus about three times as long as the previous record holder.”
Pauline, 39, became infected with the disease while doing aid work at a Save the Children centre close to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown.
The country was at the centre of an epidemic that killed 11,000 people.
Pauline was diagnosed with the disease in December after returning to her home in Glasgow. She spent three weeks in isolation at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North West London, before being declared virus-free at the end of January and discharged. But doctors found last week Ebola was still in her body.
They said in a statement yesterday: “We’re sad to announce Pauline’s condition has deteriorated and she is now critically ill.
“She is being treated for Ebola in the high-level isolation unit.”
Dr Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading, said the team treating her was “in completely uncharted territory”.
He said: “It may be that the virus has got into a place where the immune system can’t root it A TOP virologist said yesterday he was “shocked” by Pauline Cafferkey’s relapse.
Professor Jonathan Ball of Nottingham University said it was highly unusual, adding: “I’m not aware of another case in the literature out – and that what we are seeing right now is essentially a frustrated immune system overreacting and basically hurting some of the other organs.
“It is bad news, but it is not hopeless news.
“As long as she is still there, and she is still fighting, there is a chance.”
Specialists say Pauline, who had returned to work, would not be contagious as she had stopped showing symptoms of the disease even though it was still in her body tissue. The virus can only be p passed on by contact with fluids such as blood.
But 40 out of 58 of Pauline’s close contacts were offered vaccination as a precaution.
They are a mix of h healthcare workers and friends, family and community contacts. Her family h hav e claimed doctors “missed a b big opportunity” to spot she had fallen ill again.
Her sister Toni Cafferkey told
Right now, she’s had this virus three times as long as anyone else
DR BEN NEUMAN EXPERT IN VIRUSES,YESTERDAY how she had been sent home by a GP out-of-hours clinic at Glasgow’s Victoria Hospital on Monday night despite being diagnosed with a viral infection.
After later being admitted to the city’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Pauline was rushed to London in a military aircraft.
Pauline was presented with a Daily Mirror Pride of Britain award by Doctor Foster star Suranne Jones and Sir Lenny Henry in London last month.
Host Carol Vorderman has wished her a speedy recovery.
Pauline and fellow Ebola survivor Cpl Anna Cross accepted the award on behalf of thousands of UK volunteers.
They were joined on stage by Daniel Turay, 19, from Sierra Leone, who also survived the disease.
An Ebola cure that stops the virus reproducing, giving the immune system a chance to kill it off, has been 100% effective when tested on monkeys, a US disease conference heard. experimental drugs as these have worked for her before. But it’s fair to say I’m shocked.”
Prof Ball said it is possible survivors in Africa may fall ill the same way but without coming to public attention.
Public Health England assured people the risk of Ebola is “very low”.